In the wake of Extended's major overhaul, I have been contemplating about the rumored new format. I have also been thinking if one day, you wake up and find that Legacy has undergone drastic change.
Picture this: its August 20. You are checking the Source and you saw a thread titled: Legacy is dead. The opening thread reads:
Originally Posted by Aleksandr
I know a lot of us will start crying and announce our retirement from the format. But for those who will not quit the game, how will this affect the format? Yes, dual lands would be the most obvious. Will this change actually change the whole Legacy metagame? Which decks will see the most change? Will the overall established decklists be changed?
Discuss.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
I think you made a typo, as it reads, you are implying that Homelands is actually legal in Legacy.
Well, to the top tier decks, AN adds nothing, AQ adds nothing (factory has been reprinted), FE adds Hymn, the Dark adds nothing (Blood Moon has been reprinted), Homelands adds Didgeridoo, but Legends is the big loss. Chain Lightning, Moat, Karakas, and Tabernacle are the big losses, and then fringe stuff like Eureka. Revised duals are a big loss. Sinkhole also disappears. Portal gives us like Loyal Retainers and Imperial recruiter as cards that see play. All in all, decks wouldl probably be able to adapt, and probably aggro would be happier with losing 2-6 life a game to duals. Monocolor strategies would improve slightly.
the loss of the duals would suck. would people switch to rav duals to keep multi-color decks in play? It'd be really hard to run 3-color Eva without fetching utility, and switching to Ravs isn't a fair trade. I don't know what I'd do, I'd probably have to think about it, and I'm not wasting thought on a 'worst case scenario' like that. if/when it happens I'll worry about it
Skizzik No Kicker. Like a true retard.
Why couldn't overextended and legacy coexist? I mean lots of us have all the duals and cards from the old sets to competitively play legacy as it is now, so losing the duals and expensive pre-MM staples would really suck. They should have banned Entomb along with Mystical in the most recent update. I think more people would be drawn to Legacy if it weren't from the sheer power level of ANT/Reanimator.
Lets face it: Overextended is going to happen. Why the drasitic change to extended recently, what with Wizards dropping quite a few blocks from extended? I am not sure if this will kill Legacy, but I am very certain of this new format happening.
Get your Ravnica duals soon and any other lands that may be overextended viable. I know I will be slowly trying to get ahold of all of the blue shocklands in anticipation of this new format.
What is the basis of this speculation? Is it just the recent actions towards exteneded or is there another source of information?
Even if they do this "Overextended" format Legacy should still be another format, so there shouldn't be this problem. Why should they kill Legacy??
And btw I don't know a single person that would switch from Legacy to Overextended.
Team Stimato
He told you a foil from Time Spiral was Summer?
This man must be a Jedi.
If they announce a new format (Legacy still there) then I will just keep playing Legacy, maybe picking up some cards for the new format if the difference from the original Legacy deck isn't too far.
If they would change Legacy I dunno. Either sell my stables and buy new ones, or quit.
Overextended may happen, but it will similar in popularity to the current Extended, with Extended almost vanishing completely. Extended will be the format of PTQ''s and a Pro Tour, while Overextended will the the Eternal format of the Pro Tour. Brick and mortar shops already have established Legacy communities, and enough people enjoy Legacy to the point where they won't up and quit because a new, less deep format is available.
I can see some people wanting to play this format but with Legacy being as popular as it is now and with most of Overextended's card pool being obscure (Masques, Invasion, Odyssey and Onslaught block) I can't see people ditching Legacy for this format. Possibly supplementary, but not replacing.
"Michael opens with Lotus Petal, Academy Ruins, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and Stifle. I Force of Will the Stifle, but he has Force of Will backup. I Ponder on turn one and again on turn two, but fail to find a Swords to Plowshares before he has smashed me twice. " That's losing to Mike Sanchirico.
Team Bad Guys.
I do not think that this is a likely group of sets that would be excluded from a new format. Wizards' main problem with Legacy has been the Reserve List. It continues to hound them even as they move into this new "Double Standard" format (hence the quote from David-Marshall's article concerning "only so many duals out there".) Because of this, I think it is much more likely that Wizards will draw the New Format line at Mercadian Masques and all sets after October 1999, the end of the hated Reserve List. 6th Edition would be excluded from this, given its April 1999 printing before Urza's Destiny in June 1999.
But what happens to Legacy as a result of this hypothetical announcement? Either Wizards is going to remove support for Legacy as a format, or they will announce Over Extended/Legacy Lite as a supplemental Eternal format. The first scenario is the "doomsday" one, so to speak. In this situation, Legacy would collapse and if it existed at all, it would be as an EDH-like format, supported by players and local organizers. There would be lots of raging maddies, lots of internet petitions for restoring Legacy support, and lots of articles bemoaning the change. But in the end, Wizards, like any good business, will not back down. It's an ugly future, but thankfully an unlikely one.
It's far more likely that Wizards introduces this new format as a midpoint between Double Standard/Extended and Legacy. It would be an Eternal format that had a more limited pool of cards and no problems with the Reserve List. Wizards could freely reprint staples in Master's sets, or even core sets depending on the staples, to ensure that supply and demand remained stable. Fixing markets like that is risky business, but provided it is only done with critical cards (Fetchlands and Shocklands come to mind), then no one should be too upset with the results.
If this happened, then the format that would most be in trouble is Vintage (moreso than it already is, at least). Legacy would effectively become the NEW Vintage, using "Every card ever printed" minus the so-called "un-fun" ones. Over Extended would be the step down from Legacy, existing both as a transition to Legacy, and as a format in and of itself. Unlike Legacy, it would have greater PTQ Potential, given Wizards' ability to reprint cards for its decks. It might also have more popularity than Legacy (which is itself considerable), because Wizards could market it as a less exclusive Eternal format than Vintage/Legacy; we can argue over the exclusivity of Legacy at length, but the bottom line is that some players think it's exclusive, and Wizards might want to cater to them.
So, what evidence might exist to suggest that such a format will be coming? Wizards does not like when its cards sit idle in players' boxes. Yes, it acknowledges that crap like Dwarven Pony and Wood Elemental are never going to see play no matter how diverse they want a format to be. But as to legitimate decks from times past (Opposition, Replenish, Tog, Madness, Rebels, Fires, Slide, etc.), Wizards might want these to come back. A new format could lead to this, and thus Wizards might want to create it.
On a more concrete level, there are currently a large swathe of years missing from Magic formats. Let's look at how Magic formats work as of October 2010:
Standard: 2 years (Zendikar Block, M11, Scars Block)
Extended: 3-4 years (Lorwyn Block, Shadowmoor Block, M10, Shards of Alara Block, Zendikar Block, M11, Scars Block)
Legacy: 17 years (All blocks, Banned List)
Vintage: 17 years (All blocks, Restricted List)
The jump from Extended to Legacy is not only jarring for new players, it is clumsy on Wizards' part. Overextended fits beautifully in that gap:
Standard: 2 years (Zendikar Block, M11, Scars Block)
Extended: 3-4 years (Lorwyn Block, Shadowmoor Block, M10, Shards of Alara Block, Zendikar Block, M11, Scars Block)
Over-Extended/Legacy Lite: 11 years (Mercadian Masques Block, Invasion Block, 7th Edition, Odyssey Block, Onslaught Block, 8th Edition, Mirrodin Block, Kamigawa Block, 9th Edition, Ravnica Block, Time Spiral Block, 10th Edition, Lorwyn Block, Shadowmoor Block, M10, Shards of Alara Block, Zendikar Block, M11, Scars Block)
Legacy: 17 years (All blocks, Banned List)
Vintage: 17 years (All blocks, Restricted List)
That looks much nicer, no matter how you look at it. More options for players, more money for Wizards, more confidence for collectors; everyone wins. At least, that's how Wizards might look at it.
-ktkenshinx-
I was under the impression that everyone thought Overextended would be Masques forward. There really isn't any other possibility. This gives the format the most cards with zero chance of Reserve List issues arising.
"Michael opens with Lotus Petal, Academy Ruins, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and Stifle. I Force of Will the Stifle, but he has Force of Will backup. I Ponder on turn one and again on turn two, but fail to find a Swords to Plowshares before he has smashed me twice. " That's losing to Mike Sanchirico.
Team Bad Guys.
The recent actions towards extended in addition to the rumors leads me to believe that said rumors are likely to be true.
Overextended does two things:
1. Creates a new eternal format for cards that are no longer standard/extended legal.
2. Creates a format that is not held back by the restricted list.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/art.../reprintpolicy
Interesting enough, Force of Will is not on that list. I would not be surprised if Wotc reprinted Force of Will before or sometime during the existence of overextended. You can claim that they would never do such a thing, but what would that reason be?
So Wizards recognizes that the reserved list was a big fuckup and now instead of rectifying it by abolishing the reserved list, it's just going to create a new format and intentionally move the start date to avoid reserved list conflicts?
I thought the most logical start time for overextended was the MTGO start as well: Mirage onward.
Same as MTGO, for the same reasons as MTGO (first competitive set). Plus the format would be completely supported for MTGO play (and therefore players could sit in their basements instead of having to, you know, bathe and talk to people and shit).
They could make it Masques onward, but the reserved list doesn't exist online anyway, and I thought Wizards was primarily trying to push MTGO.
"overextended"
"double standard"
Is it just the pedobear in my van or does anyone else think these names were made up by cute little girls ? I mean, I can respect names like vintage, legacy, and eternal. While I only can only respect plays on words until the fun has worn off and I dont want to wake up beside them anymore, officer.
Also, if anything its more of a sub-legacy and than neo-legacy.
I don't think this is the case. I mean WotC seems quite clear that they cannot be sure of their business model for Magic Online being universally applied the same way that Paper Magic is. As such I think Paper Magic is the safer investment, even if it does not make them as much direct revenue.
ON TOPIC: As far as I see the possibility of Over Extended or whatever you deem to call it. Yes I do believe it is something we can all reasonably expect to see in the next few months or so. However I am hoping that the changes to the reserved list can themselves be seen as an indication that Wizards won't totally screw up Legacy itself by creating over extended. What I mean by this is that I am hoping that WotC will understand that much of the value of the highly expensive cards on the reserved list comes from the fact that they are highly sought after cards either in Legacy or Vintage, more often in Legacy than in Vintage. I am hoping that this realization is enough to make them not want to devaluate the collections of several people in the community of Magic the Gathering by abolishing the two most highly valuable formats and thus devaluating several sets worth of cards.
WoTC is not stupid enough to simply abolish Legacy and Vintage. However, it probably won't support either beyond what happens as of now.
Also, if anything its more of a sub-legacy and than neo-legacy.
Because of the lack of dual-lands? I highly doubt that: we still have rav-duals, fetches (which are argubly better than duals) and WotC can always print something almost as good as duals but nothing quite as good. Futhermore, the following cards are not on the reserved list:
Wasteland
Force of Will
Goblin Lackey
Chain Lightning
These are cards that could be reprinted again some day and the first three have been format defining in some shape or form. All four cards have seen Tier 1 play. Combo in this format will be weaker since LED is still on the reserved list, while other powerful cards like Reanimate and Exhume are not on the reserved list.
The point I am trying to make is that overextended is not as bad as some are making it out to be and I doubt wizards wants to replace Legacy.
A new Over Extended/Legacy Lite format will supplement Legacy. It will not supplant it.
It is important that people understand this, both a) because Wizards would never be so stupid to try and kill of Legacy and b) because the players who are supporting this hypothetical format do not dislike or wish ill upon Legacy. Legacy is a healthy and robust format that needs no more changes other than the occassional banning and unbanning. But Legacy still has problems, like any health format.
There is a giant gap between Extended and Legacy, especially in light of Wizards' most B&R announcement. A host of strategies, decks, and cards, which are not necessarily obsolete, have been killed off by the gradual wear and tear of time. Archetypes that existed between 2000 and 2008 are mostly gone, because they are illegal in later formats like Standard and Extended, and because they just don't have enough punch to compete with the Legacy tier 1 decks. In most cases, this is because they can't answer Legacy staples like Force of Will, Wasteland, Swords to Plowshares, fast LED based combo, and so on. These are not bad decks. They are just not Legacy decks.
There are players who want to play these decks and do not want to deal with the Reserve List nonsense that we Legacy players have grown accustomed to. There are players who fear the rising cost of cards, and there will be players in the future who have to confront the realities of 100+ dollar fetchlands (all of them, not just Sea). There are those who want to play an Eternal Format, but do not necessarily want to deal with these potential problems, problems that are growing and problems that are not going away. I do not mean to be doomy and gloomy; the world of Legacy is not in any danger because card prices are rising. i also fully acknowledge that Standard can be as expensive, if not more expensive, than Legacy. And it even rotates every year! But all of that aside, even the most adamant Legacy veterans must admit that eventually new players will have a much harder time transitioning into an Eternal Format.
Historically, Wizards' problem with Eternal Formats has been the lack of profit. You can't make money on cards that you can't (re)print. Unfortunately for Wizards, that turns out to be a lot of serious Legacy staples, most notably the fetchlands. But a new Eternal Format fixes this. Wizards could easily introduce Master's/From the Vaults sets that would reprint key staples and sell them to players for a reasonable, but sitll profit-gaining, price. The end result is a happy Wizards and a happy player base.
To me, the question is simple.
It is not a matter of if Magic needs a new Eternal Format. It is a matter of when.
The new hypothetical format could replace the sickman Vintage and usher in a new era of Magic with options for a wide range of players. This is an ideal outcome.
-ktkenshinx-
I am not quite sure I follow what you mean here? Are you trying to imply that they will keep both Vintage and Legacy around, but as is the case with Vintage they will not have more than one high level sanctioned tournament a year, and as is the case with Legacy they will only support a few grand prix's a year for Legacy?
The rumor seems to be that the Reserved List was tightened, and then Wizards stayed silent about it, because Hasbro's legal department told them to do so.
In that case, it was irrelevant what the players or even Wizards itself wanted. Hasbro, as the parent company, has the final say in any decision. I'm sure there's at least a few sound legal arguments as to why the Reserved List should stay, but I'm not sure that getting rid of it would have necessarily generated tons of lawsuits.
Regardless, Wizards' business model over the past year or so has focused very heavily on supporting brick-and-mortar stores - card and hobby shops that could potentially act as venues for paper tournaments. This is the driving force behind the revamp of the Wizards Play Network and store recognition system.
I think Wizards recognizes the value of MTGO as a supplementary income source for the game, but as anyone who's ever played it will tell you, it's just not the same as sitting down across from some fat, smelly, socially inept nerd and battling. MTGO is also a pretty shitty way to get new players to play the game, and recruitment has been a huge driving force lately.
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